Strategies in network industries: the importance of inter-organizational networks, complementary goods, and commitment

This paper focuses on technology battles that are fought in network industries. The literature primarily focuses on battles that have occurred in single industries. With the convergence of industries, products that originate from different industries can be connected in technological systems, and battles are fought over standards for these systems. In this paper, we focus on these types of battles and investigate which factors impact their outcome and how these factors are related to each other. We analyze two technology battles: for wireless home networking and for an e-purse technology. Our findings show that provided that the actors are committed to the success of the standard, size and diversity in the inter-organizational network increases the availability and variety of complementary goods which positively influences the installed base of the standard which then may lead to its dominance.